In My-HiME, there’s a scene where Mikoto does the usual “drag the huge sword on the ground creating sparks”, but this time it seemed a little odd since she was doing it on grass. This implies that the grass or ground is at least as hard as the sword.
Thinking about this quandry made me recall a scene in Maburaho. There, a skidding car made a noise similar to tires skidding on ashpalt when it seemed clear that they are driving on a packed dirt road. Now, given the picture on the left, one could suppose that the dirt in the ground is causing the sparks and not the grass. I suppose the only proper conclusion would be that the ground is hard, and the grass might also be hard.
Japan: The Hard Country
The other day, I was in the area near Sunset and we passed by the McDonald’s that I thought was similar to the one I talked about before, and it turns out only the sign was old. The restaurant itself was more modern looking. After a bit of searching, I found a website with a page talking about old-style McDonald’s. There you can see a nice comparison to the pic from Ah! My Goddess.